Artefacts of a Future Past

This photography exhibition brings together the work of Naomi Huq and Christi Macpherson, both recentgraduates of the Photography MA programme at Falmouth University.

Here, the two artists consider how systems of trade, industry and power shape our sense of identity, our landscapes and the stories we tell about ourselves.

Naomi's Between Us and Other draws on family stories of migration and colonial networks, layering them with contemporary landscapes and textures to link her ancestral past with her evolving experience of life in the Highlands.

She explores how inherited narratives continue to influence ideas of belonging and difference in today’s turbulent and complex social climate, and suggests that recognising our shared histories can challenge the polarising rhetoric that dominates public debate.

At the core of Naomi’s work sit questions of who we think we are and how we see others. She uses digital, analogue and mixed media processes to evoke connection and resonance.

Christi’s The Lies We Tell Ourselves posits a world peppered with the remnants of the buildings and machines responsible for an end point of the climate crisis.

His work gives a voice to people who might live with the consequences of late capitalism in the far future, whose identity, both individual and cultural, will forever be invisible.

Christi's methodology is rooted in contemporary archaeological thinking. He disrupts the digital process, creating glitches and giving each image a tangible quality of disquiet.

These two bodies of work reflect on what is left behind and what we carry forward, individually and collectively through time and place. They speak of how memory and legacy is inherited, constructed and reimagined in a way that is both personal and relevant.

Artefacts of a Future Past is showing from 21st April to 27th April at the Iona Gallery, Kingussie.